Result
After 14 hours of continuous battle, there was still no result but enormous loss of life. Authorities differ greatly, but a reasonable estimate of Russian casualties is about 15,000, the French somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 (some sources state as many as 25,000 casualties). The Russians left 3,000 prisoners for the French. The French had gained possession of the battlefield — nothing but a vast expanse of bloodstained snow and frozen corpses — but they had suffered enormous losses and failed to destroy the Russian army.
It was left to Marshal Ney to sum up. Riding over the fields of Eylau the following morning, Ney said, Quel massacre! Et sans résultat – "What a massacre! And all for nothing."
Eylau was not the decisive victory characteristic of Napoleon's earlier campaigns, prolonging the war with Russia, until his decisive victory at the Battle of Friedland forced Tsar Alexander I to the peace table at Tilsit.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Eylau
Famous quotes containing the word result:
“Germany collapsed as a result of having engaged in a struggle for empire with the concepts of provincial politics.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“The contention that a standing army and navy is the best security of peace is about as logical as the claim that the most peaceful citizen is he who goes about heavily armed. The experience of every-day life fully proves that the armed individual is invariably anxious to try his strength. The same is historically true of governments. Really peaceful countries do not waste life and energy in war preparations, with the result that peace is maintained.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. All the conditions of modern life—its material plenitude, its sheer crowdedness—conjoin to dull our sensory faculties.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)